


Under Cover of Darkness

by LibraryMage



Series: Superhero AU [8]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Brother-Sister Relationships, Found Family, Gen, Guilt, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 07:26:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21222809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibraryMage/pseuds/LibraryMage
Summary: Some things can only be talked about when the rest of the world is asleep.





	Under Cover of Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> written for Whumptober 2019 prompts #8 (stab wound) and alt#10 (nightmare), and the Found Family Bingo prompt "nightmares"
> 
> warning for mildly-graphic description of eye injury; character death in dream

_Kanan was barely breathing._

_He lay on the ground, Maul standing over him with Kanan’s own knife in his hand, blood glinting on the blade._

_Ezra ran forward, but before he could reach Kanan’s side, Maul grabbed his arm. A sharp, cold pain burst through Ezra’s stomach as Maul brought the knife up, sinking the blade into his gut._

_Ezra let out a weak cry as he looked up at Maul in disbelief. He tried to form the word _why_, but no sound came out._

_Maul threw him to the ground, just feet from Kanan, whose breath was growing slower and shallower with every passing second._

_He reached for Kanan, trying to grab his mentor’s hand, but Kanan was too far away and he _couldn’t move_._

_As he reached, his shoulder straining with the effort, Maul’s boot came down on his wrist, pinning his hand down. Ezra struggled, trying to throw Maul off of him. He had to reach Kanan before he –_

_But it was too late._

_Kanan’s chest wasn’t moving anymore. The quiet groans of pain had stopped._

_Kanan was dead._

_The boot on Ezra’s wrist pressed down harder. Ezra gasped and looked up to see that it was no longer Maul, but Kanan who stood over him, crushing his wrist._

_Blood dripped down Kanan’s face, pouring from the ragged, empty holes where his eyes used to be._

_“This is your fault,” Kanan said, his voice laced with utter disgust and hatred_

_Ezra cried out as Kanan pressed down harder on his wrist._

_“You did this.”_

* * *

Ezra let out a strangled cry as his eyes snapped open. He sat up, hugging his arms around himself as his eyes darted around his room.

_It’s just a dream_, he thought. _Everything’s okay_.

But, he realized the moment the thought flitted through his mind, he was wrong. _Nothing_ was okay. Not anymore. Kanan was still in the hospital, and the doctors had said he would never regain his eyesight.

And it was all because Ezra had trusted the wrong person.

Ezra stood up abruptly, tossing his blankets aside. He didn’t want to go back to sleep. He knew that the moment he closed his eyes, he would see those dark, empty eye sockets and the blood pouring from them.

Ezra slipped out of his room and into the dark hallway. It was after midnight, but he could hear movement in the kitchen. It had to be Sabine. She and Chopper were the only ones in the house tonight besides him. They had all been trading off shifts at the hospital, and tonight it was Hera and Zeb’s turn. They were the ones who spent the most time there, insisting that they didn’t want Ezra and Sabine to have to go through it.

Ezra smelled the coffee brewing before he entered the kitchen. Without a word, he walked up to the cabinet and took out a mug, setting it down beside the one Sabine had set out for herself. Neither of them said a word until Sabine had poured coffee into each of their cups, adding an excessive amount of sugar to hers, and they had moved to the living room, each sitting on opposite edges of the couch, looking down into their mugs rather than at each other.

“Have you heard from Hera and Zeb?” Ezra asked, his voice so quiet he barely heard himself speak.

“No,” Sabine said, her voice barely louder than Ezra’s. “But they probably think we’re asleep.”

Silence fell again, dragging out longer than either of them could keep track of as they let themselves get lost in their own thoughts.

“Ezra?” Sabine asked, finally looking at him. “You – you were the one who worked the closest with Maul. Do you know…” she sighed and looked down again. “Why did he do it?”

_“What do you want?”_

_“You.”_

_“What?”_

_“Come with me, Ezra.”_

A heavy lump formed in Ezra’s throat at the memory of Maul's words. Maul had done this because of him. Because he’d wanted Kanan out of the way so he could draw Ezra closer to him. But how could he tell Sabine that? It was bad enough he’d been the first of them to trust Maul, but now Maul had attacked a member of their family because of him. Sabine would never forgive him if she knew.

“I – I don’t know,” Ezra said.

“I knew we shouldn’t have trusted him,” Sabine muttered, sounding more like she was talking to herself than to Ezra.

Ezra’s throat tightened as tears began to sting at his eyes. He should have known, too. He’d been the one to argue that Maul was really on their side. He’d vouched for Maul, and now everything had fallen apart. He should have just listened to Sabine, to Kanan, to _anyone_.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, trying to blink away his tears.

Sabine looked up abruptly and Ezra felt a sharp pang in his chest. His stomach roiled as he realized what it was. Sabine’s guilt. The only reason he even knew he had the ability to sense it was because Maul had explained it to him.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she said. She dropped her gaze back to her mug with a sigh. “He tricked you, Ezra. He tricked all of us.”

_Did he?_ Ezra didn’t ask the question that sprung to his mind. He knew the others had come to accept Maul as almost an ally, even if they couldn’t really trust him, but that never would have happened if Ezra hadn’t been naïve enough to think he could be trusted.

Ezra stared down into the mug in his hands, letting the almost-burning warmth sink into his palms. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

No matter what he had to do, he would never let Maul, or anyone else, hurt someone he loved again.


End file.
